GIFT  OF 


FEB     9  1917 


SONGS  OF   THE  SERBIANS 


BY  Dr.  B.  L.  STEVENSON 


Reprinted  from  Liberty',  September,  1916 


Liberty  Publishing  Co. 
Oakland.  Cal. 


3ERVATI0N 
COPY  ADDED 
ORIGINAL  TO  BE 
RETAINED 

NOV  21 1994 


SONGS  OF  THE  SERBIANS 
By  Dr.  B.  L.  Stevenson  —  New  York  City. 


PCI41O 
Sfcl 


Serbian  national  folk  lore  is  receiving  more  than  usual  at- 
tention today  because  of  the  spirited  fighting  of  its  heroic 
little  country.  "I  had  no  idea,"  says  Havelock  Ellis,  "that 
Serbian  legendry  literature  possessed  splendour  and  charm 
of  such  unique  quality,"  while  Lord  Curzon  tersely  remarks 
of  Serbian  ballads  "sumptous  and  interesting."  A  host  of  ad- 
mirers numbering  members  of  literary  London,  the  Admi- 
rality,  cosmopolitan  society  and  the  ranks  of  organized  lear- 
ning acknowledge  the  beauty  of  the  legends  from  the 
splendidly  "facinating,  gallant  little  country"  now  fighting 
greater  battles  than  ever  in  the  days  of  old. 

"Just  as  your  guslari  kept  the  natural  language  alive 
through  dark  days  of  persecution  and  misery"  so  the 
sixteenth,  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries  brought 
a  renaissance  of  Serbia  in  song,  Hugh  A.  Law  has  exclai- 
med in  praise  of  the  traditionary  customs  and  beliefs  belon- 
ging since  time  immemorial  to  the  Serbians.  "It  is,  I  sup- 
pose," says  the  folk-lorist  Gilbert  Murray,  "the  best 
parallel  now  existing  to  literature  from  which  the  Homeric 
poems  arose.  Certainly  the  accounts  one  reads  of  the  Serbian 
bards  remind  one  of  the  Greek  bards  of  the  heroic  age  more 
than  anything  else  I  know." 

Truly  from  out  of  the  mythic  ages  the  Serbian  bard  has 
come  to  say,  "I  am  the  people's  heritage,  I  the  soul  of  a 
day  that  has  lain  in  the  beginning  of  time,  in  the  dawn  of  the 
age  of  man."  And  disentangled  from  entrapping  years, 
shorn  of  itinerant  drapings,  emerges  the  Serbian  concept 
of  life  adrift  from  Asia's  hand,  product  of  age-old  alchemies, 
of  fate,  the  soul,  birth  and  the  passing  of  days.  Glorious  the 
sun  is  conceived  as  provider,  nourisher,  and  creator  who 
daily  weaving  destiny,  climbs  the  high-hung  heavens  where 
mountains  do  him  honour  and  Time  and  the  lesser  gods 
dwelling  in  regions  of  snow,  bow  in  servile  subjection, 
recalcitrant  acolytes  in  wondrous  love  of  the  sun.  Equipped 
with  such  fancy  is  it  strange  that  throughout  Old  Serbia 
odd  customs  of  generating  fire  and  heat  prevail?  Two  young 


2 


children  stript  to  the  skin  and  undefiled  are  sent  into  a 
room  apart  to  produce  friction  by  drawing  two  sticks  to- 
gether, or  fire  is  kindled  in  a  big  kettle  and  ladled  out  to 
the  credulous  peasants,  one  by  one. 

Of  fire  and  the  counterpart  of  good  and  evil,  of  light  and 
darkness  has  the  Serbian  balladry  sung,  weaving  the  skeins 
of  purity  and  vice,  sex  and  sexlessness,  masculinity  and  fe- 
minity with  a  dexterity  marvelously  prescient.  Cabalistic, 
carnal  and  diabolic  is  the  demon-lover  who  feeding  on  inter- 
red corpses  represents  the  Slav's  abhorance  of  vice,  de- 
christianized  limitlessly  like  the  malignance  of  Indian 
Rakshasas.  Vampires  worm  their  way  deep  in  the  earth 
only  to  be  detected  by  the  presence  of  stainless  black 
horses,  alone  at  night  in  the  churchyards.  Exorcism,  feti- 
chism,  and  immolation  seem  to  us  Westerners  to  characte- 
rize a  land  where  "pagan  rites  still  survive,  where  vampires 
roam  the  meadows  and  vilas  still  wash  their  bodies  on 
the  banks." 

That  washing  takes  place  at  all  in  "  the  unsanitary  peasant 
homes"  as  has  been  suggested  by  the  zealous  detractors 
of  Serbian  beauty,  is  remarkable.  Yet  beauty,  says  Arthur 
Pinero,  interest,  says  A.  Conan  Doyle,  and  heroism,  says 
Robert  Bridges  are  unmistakably  found  in  Serbian  balladry. 
Perhaps  these  fanciful  qualities  are  best  detected  in  the 
vision  which  the  Serb  has  had  of  that  chef  oV oeuvre  of  his  ima- 
gination, the  vila.  A  kind  of  muse,  this  creature  baffles 
description  —  white  like  the  morning  star,  pure  like  an 
early  church  Madonna,  sensuous  as  a  mistress,  faithful  as 
a  sister,  and  as  spiteful  as  a  midnight  witch,  —  the  vila 
crowns  the  imaginative  life  of  warrior  Serbs.  Swift  footed  to 
succor  distress  in  battle,  and  quick  to  warn  of  danger,  as  that 
vila  who  upon  the  mountain  Avala  called  aloud  to  De- 
mitrius  and  Stephan  to  behold  the  plain  of  Belgrade  so  thick 
with  Turkish  tents  that  had  raindrops  fallen  no  water  would 
have  touched  the  earth,  this  type  of  fairy  was  the  arbiter 
of  the  people's  destiny  and  the  protector  of  its  happiness. 
Eager  to  heal  the  sick,  their  pale  fingers  caressing  inexpres- 
sably  compassionate  the  souls  of  men,  these  muses  resemble 
nursing  peasants  of  war-ridden  Serbia  today.  Like  the  pea- 
sant women,  too,  they  throw  their  weight  on  the  side  of 
warriors,  and  ride  in  the  heavens   Walkiire-mad. 


The  Battle  of  Kosovo  Cycle  holds  the  most  prominent 
place  in  the  folk  lore  of  this  warlike  Slavic  country.  Cele- 
brating a  historical  event  as  it  does,  it  serves  in  a  yet  greater 
degree  to  entvisage  national  character  and  to  give  a  con- 
crete picture  of  the  human  characteristics  which  played  the 
parts  in  creating  the  story.  The  list  of  separate  songs  in- 
cludes such  topics  as: 

I.  Knez  Lazar  Builds  His  Memorial  Church  at  Ravanitsa. 

II.  The  Turks  on  Kosovo  Plain. 

III.  Sultan  Murat  Sends  His  Challenge  to  Tsar  Lazar. 

IV.  Tsar  Lazar  and  the  Tsaritsa  Militsa. 

V.  Tsar  Lazar  Chooses  the  Heavenly  Kingdom. 

VI.  The  Maiden  of  Kosovo  and  the  Serbian  Heroes. 

VII.  Milosh  Obilich  Asks  His  Way  to  the  Turkish  Camp. 

VIII.  The  Quarrel  between  Obilich  and  Brankovich. 

IX.  The  Battle  of  Kosovo. 

X.  Stephan  Vasoyevich. 

XL  News  from  the  Battle  of  Kosovo. 

XII.  The  Maiden  of  Kosovo. 

XIII.  The  Death  of  the  Yugoviches'  Mother. 

XIV.  Sanctification  of  Tsar  Lazar. 

The  separate  stories  play  up  to  high  motives  of  human 
action.  The  epic  "Tsar  Lazar  Chooses  the  Heavenly  King- 
dom" is  a  case  in  point.  Tsar  Lazar,  the  ruler  who  about  the 
end  of  the  XlVth  century  fought  so  gallantly  against  the 
Turks  was  successful  to  the  point  of  annihilating  a  great 
body  of  Turks  near  the  river  Toplitsa  in  1387.  Wherupon 
the  Sultan  Amurath  gathering  a  large  host  of  Asiatics 
marched  against  the  Serbs  on  one  of  the  largest  plains  in  the 
middle  of  the  Balkan  Peninsula,  the  field  of  Kosovo  —  or 
the  "field  of  blackbirds''  as  it  is  called.  Thereupon  was 
foredoomed  the  eventual  conflict  which  was  to  be  presented 
to  the  Serbians,  a  choice  between  earthly  rule  or  heavenly 
approbation.  Tsar  Lazar  in  being  called  upon  to  choose 
between  the  victory  of  his  troops  or  the  hope  of  inheriting 
Heaven  is  virtually  face  to  face  with  a  situation  similar  to 
that  which  our  Lord  met  when  He  renounced  the  delights 
of  this  world  for  life  Eternal.  The  poem  runs: 


"Flying  comes  a  gray-like  bird,  a  falcon, 
From  the  Holy  City,  Jerusalem, 
And  a  little  swallow  seems  to  carry  — 
— No,  'tis  not  a  gray  bird,  not  the  falcon, 
But  it  is  the  Holy  Saint  Elijah 
And  no  little  swallow  is  he  bringing, 
But  a  letter  from  God's  Blessed  Mother, 
He  bears  it  to  the  Tsar   on  Kosovo, 

"0  Tsar  Lazar,  thou  of  glorious  line, 

Between  two  Empires  which  one  wilt  thou  choose? 

Dost  thou  desire  the  Kingdom  most  of  God? 

Or  dost  thou  choose  the  Empire  of  this  World? 

And  when  the  Tsar  had  listened  to  those  words, 
The  Tsar  the  question  ponders  o'er  and  o'er; 
*  Dear  God,  what  shall  I  answer,  how  decide? 
Upon  which  Kingdom  shall  I  set  my  choice  — 
Shall  I  most  desire  the  Heavn'ly  Kingdom? 
Or  shall  I  choose  an  Empire  of  this  world? 
If  that  I,  in  choosing  either  Kingdom, 
Should  earthly  Empire  above  all,  desire  — 
The  earthly  Kingdom  is  a  little  thing; 
God's   Kingdom   is  forever   and  for  aye.' — 
The  Tsar  will'd  for  the  Kingdom  of  the  Lord, 
Rather  than  the  Crown  of  worldly  Empire...  (l) 

Likewise  a  moral  conflict  is  portrayed  in  the  epic  "Tsar 
Lazar  and  the  Tsaritsa  Militsa,  "in  which  Militsa,  regretting 
the  loss  of  the  scion  of  her  race,  entreats  all  her  male  relatives 
to  withold  participation  in  the  Battle  of  Kosovo,  only  to 
be  answered  by  each  separate  hero  that  bravery  called  to 
Kosovo,  come  what  may  to  the  perpetuation  of  the  line. 

But  of  all  the  Kosovo  Songs,  one  stands  out  pertinently 
picturing  a  mother  in  Israel,  as  one  might  say.  The  Yugo- 
viches'  mother  praying  for  news  of  the  battle  in  which  are 
her  nine  sons  and  her  husband,  the  great  Yug  Bogdan,  asks 
for  falcons'  eyes,  and  the  wings  of  swans  to  take  her  to  the 
battle  field.  There  she  finds  the  nine  dead  heroes  with  their 

(1)  Quoted  from  the  translation  made  by  Prince  Lazarovich-Hrebelia- 
novich,  The  Serbian  People,  vol.  I,  p.  398.  (1910) 


5 

nine  spears  stacked  above  and  their  nine  warrior  horses 
waiting.  With  heart  like  stone  she  takes  the  horses  back  to 
her  castle  with  her  to  bear  in  heavy  silence  her  grief  with 
her  daughters-in-law.  Not  until  the  arrival  of  a  falcon  from 
the  battle  field  bearing  the  dead  hand  of  her  son,  does  she 
break  down  and  weep,  and  then  only  as  she  dies. 

"God  adored!  What  a  mighty  wonder  — 

When  the  army  on  Kosovo  gathered! 

In  that  army,  nine  were  sons  of  Yugo, 

And  tenth  was  old  Bogdan,  great  Yug  Bogdan. 

The  Yugoviches'  mother  prayed  of  God, 

That  the  eyes  of  falcons*  God  would  give  her, 

And  white  wings  of  the  swan,  she  prayed  He'd  give, 

That  she  might  fly  to  far  Kosovo  Plain, 

And  might  see  there  the  nine  Yugoviches 

With  them,  the  tenth,  the  great  old  Yug  Bogdan. 

Dead,  she  finds,  there,  the  Yugoviches  nine, 
And  tenth  of  them,  old  Yug  Bogdan  lay  dead! 

But  that  mother's  heart  set  hard  like  stone, 
And  from  that  heart  no  tear  fell  down. 
Instead,  she  takes  the  nine  good  horses  there, 

And  to  her  Castle  white,  she  then  goes  back. 

When  it  was  light,  the  hour  of  new-born  day, 
Two  vultures  come  a-flying,  raven  black, 

They  carry  a  dead  hand,  a  hero's  hand, 
And  on  that  hand  there  glows  a  wedding-ring. 
Into  the  mother's  lap  they  throw  it. 

Then  Damian's  mother  takes  the  hand  up, 
Turns  it  over,  strokes  it,  and  plays  with  it  — 
Whisp'ring  to  the  hand,  she  stammers  starkly: 

'Here  in  my  lap,  'tis  here,  that  thou  dids  grow! 
Torn  from  the  tree  wert  thou  —  on  Kosovo!' 
That  sob  of  death,  lightly  her  soul  set  free."(l) 

(1)  Idem  ib.  p.  402. 


The  significance  of  this  tale  is  detected  in  its  personal 
stoicism  and  its  symbolism,  considered  an  allegory  of  the 
nine  Nemanya  Kings  and  their  mother,  the  old  Serbian 
Kingdom. 

The  nationalistic  idea  of  old  Serbia  alive  in  the 
new  is  most  remarkable  in  these  poems.  It  has  been 
the  centrifugal  force  which  has  kept  the  Serbians  a 
nation.  Exposed  to  the  impact  of  alien  civilizations,  this 
central  fact  of  existence,  the  creation  and  the  recitation  of 
the  songs,  has  preserved  nationalism  and  repelled  the  dis- 
ruptive forces  of  dispersion.  Embracing  India,  Greece  and 
Babylon  as  it  does  and  reflecting  Germanic,  Roman  and 
Gaelic  kinship,  Serbian  literature  yet  stands  forth  sin- 
gularly unique,  the  echo  of  a  people's  genius,  cultured  by 
Vuk  Karadzhich,  to  whom  belongs  the  honour  of  being 
creator  of  his  nation's  tongue  and  the  collector  of  tales  which 
before  him  were  the  common  possession  of  the  singing  heart 
of  bard  and  peasantry.  Although  the  published  epics  ap- 
peared early  in  the  nineteenth  century,  the  greatest  notice 
was  taken  of  them  in  1823-33  when  Karadzhich  brought 
out  his  monumental  work.  In  1868  Avril  succeeded  in 
bringing  the  Kosovo  epic  particularly  before  the  notice 
of  the  cultured  world  by  publishing  "La  Bataille  de  Kos- 
sovo."  Petranovich  included  this  same  epic  in  his  collection 
of  1867;  Vuk  Vrchevich  and  M.  Miloyevich  helped  to 
popularize  it.  The  critics,  on  their  side,  have  seen  in  this 
cycle  a  Homeric  epos,  the  product  of  a  South  Slav  (and 
therefore  Byzantine  Slav)  in  contrast  to  North  Slav  pro- 
ductions. The  invariable  decasyllabic  verse,  the  rythmic 
declamation  and  the  fragmentary  motiving  suggest  the 
creative  power  of  an  age-old  people.  There  is  no  fixed  fall  or 
tonality,  and  the  caesura  occurs  after  the  fourth  syllable. 
The  critics  have  fully  analysed  text  and  content :  Hilf erding 
and  Miklosich,  diagnosing  Vuk's  text  and  Pavich,  Sviloye- 
vich  and  Yurishich  Yanko  finding  Dalmatian  and  Ragu- 
san  marks  in  the  songs.  But  like  all  academic  questions, 
a  tendency  to  argue  to  futility  is  hardly  to  be  avoided. 
Whatever  criticism  says  the  main  point  remains  that  the 
epos  gives  a  glowing  picture  of  the  life  and  spirit  of  the 
people  and  as  such  is  to  be  revered. 

Yet  although  uniquely  Serbian,  "in  the  folk  tales  we  find 
striking  traces  of  contact  with  the  Turk,  and  through  him 


with  the  Arab,"(l)  traces  which  recall  such  historic  events 
as  the  Hellespont  crossing  and  the  misrule  of  the  Turkish 
viziers.  Forceful  enrollment  of  strong  young  Serbs  for  the 
janissary  band  was  a  feature  as  common  to  Turkish  ex- 
ploitation of  Serbian  lands  as  the  abduction  of  fair  maidens 
for  the  delectation  of  sultan's  seraglio.  "  Yet  it  must  not  be 
thought  that  these  Serbian  tales  have  no  originality,  no 
character  of  their  own;  there  is  about  them  a  sturdy  mo- 
rality that  is  certainly  not  Oriental/' (2)  as  for  instance  a  tale 
is  told  at  Istamboul  of  a  Serbian  hero,  Kralyevich  Marko, 
who  even  champions  the  cause  of  a  Turkish  maiden  against 
an  amorous  Moor.  Dowered  with  gifts  but  piteously  sad 
is  the  maiden  whom  Marko,  seeking  to  comfort,  frees 
from  the  power  of  the  hateful  Moor,  by  shattering  to  earth 
his  powerful  antagonist  astride  the  mare  Bedevia.  Tales  of 
the  peasants  though,  at  times  overlaid  with  evidences 
of  fierce  brutality,  yet  show  in  the  refinement  and  delicacy 
of  their  telling  the  unmistikable  mark  of  the  East.  Heavy 
ornamentation  and  sickly  sweetness  obtrude  as  foreign  tra- 
ces; the  tassels  and  tamboretes,  pavilions  and  silken  flags 
are  as  Turkish  as  the  golden  drapery,  the  nuptial  robe  fleck- 
ed with  gold,  the  costly  wedding  shirts  and  the  bootfuls 
of  ducats  are  Venetian.  Perfume  and  minarets  signal  the 
menace  of  a  foreign  cult  which  although  artistically  pleasing 
was,  when  assuming  an  intermingling  of  religion,  abhorent  to 
the  Serbians  who  sensed  behind  the  Turkish  fez,  the  javelin 
and  the  yatagan  relics  of  a  torpid  day,  of  faithless  Pashas, 
of  black  midnight  secrets  of  houris  and  other  Stamboul  fan- 
cies —  the  comingling  of  dead  flowers,  ikons  and  rose  dust. 

For  quite  pure  as  the  tone  of  a  bell  is  the  Serbian  strain 
of  religious  feeling;  compact  of  the  sound  of  chimes,  mas- 
culine entonation,  the  scent  of  incense  and  the  sight  of  ba- 
sil flowers  powdery  white  against  the  gold  of  the  ikons,  it 
calls  up  an  aroma  of  chastity,  asceticism  and  rigorous  for- 
malism. The  odour  of  monastery  life,  rendolent  of  mists 
which  rise  at  dawns,  suggests  long  fasts  at  Christmas  and 
at  Easter  time  in  monasteries  high  up  in  cloud-draped  moun- 
tains, where  riverlets  dash  swiftly  by  and  the  woodlands 
seem  always  intently  listening,  or  the  muted  moods  of  the 

(1)  Quoted  from  private  letters  adressed  to  W.  M.  Petrovitch  upon 
the  appearance  of  his  Hero  Tales  and  Legends  of  the  Serbians.  (1914). 

(2)  Idem. 


8 

midsummer  fasts  when  bees  hum  in  tall  languorous  grasses 
and  chimes  peal  over  fair  fields  in  which  flowers  hide  their 
black  roots  creeping  under  soil.  The  church  is  often  quoted 
as  a  retreat  from  persecution  and  from  wicked  agressors; 
such  is  told  of  the  unhappy  death  of  Yelitsa  whose  body 
bound  to  the  tails  of  dashing  horses  fell  to  earth  on  a  de- 
sert spot  where  eventually  rose  a  noble  church,  walled 
of  marble,  vine-entwined. 

To  forget  faith  and  embrace  Islam  was  ever  the  coax 
of  insidious  luxury  to  the  Serbians.  And  how  foolish  sounds 
a  warning  against  embibing  a  beverage  prepared  from 
forest  plants  and  flowerets  which  might  cause  transforma- 
tion to  the  life  of  a  libertine,  involving  the  wearing  of  scarlet 
velvets,  opening  secret  cupboards  and  taking  forth  golden 
gowns  with  silky  trains  and  long  flowing  sleeves.  Stephan 
Yaksich,  in  entreating  the  Turk  for  his  bride  "more 
beautiful  than  the  white  vila  herself,"  made  a  profound 
obeisance  and  kissed  the  slipper  and  knee  of  the  Sultan.  For 
love  of  opposite  sex  not  only  were  coarse  fur  caps  and  heavy 
cloaks  discarded,  but  finely  tempered  swords  and  sabres 
studded  with  diamonds  as  big  as  maidens'  eyes  were  bran- 
dished by  gallants  who  "  shone  on  the  verdant  fields  like 
setting  sun  behind  the  forest"  as  they  waved  on  flagpoles 
adorned  with  golden  apples,  the  sign  of  the  great  glistening 
cross.  And  journeys  far  in  bridegroom  interest  have  been 
undertaken  over  paths  now  placarded  with  every  war  news 
story.  Wanderlust  and  travel  longing  were  far  from  lying 
dormant  in  the  Serbian  Gaelic  heart  blood.  From  the 
mountains  to  the  plain,  from  high  Miroch  to  yon  Zagorye, 
from  the  Banat  to  Bulgaria,  from  proud  Venice  to  Vienna, 
from  the  church  at  Tekiya  over  'cross  the  river  Timok, 
tsar  and  bridgroom,  gilded  coaches  Arabian  coursered  have 
by  custom  long  since  travelled.  Even  today  on  the  level 
plains  of  Zhablyak,  and  the  pleasant  lands  of  Morava  where 
the  shepherds  sleep  at  noonday,  and  the  men  of  Podgoritsa 
gather,  one  can  hear  recited  the  elemental  stories  of  the 
nation's  long  gone  past.  The  waving  grasses  linger,  and  the 
goatherds  sprawling,  tending  horses  idly  drinking,  tell 
pleasant  tales  of  goats  and  shepherds,  flocks  that  saunter  in 
the  sunshine  of  the  mountain's  blazing  noon-tide,  lyric  lays 
that  chant  in  chorus  of  dire  chances  befalling  lambkins. 
All  the  fragments  then  that  nestle  deep  in  hollows  of  man's 
memory  are  thus  living  in  the  present  like  the  undulating 
grasses  springing  on  the  downs  in  Serbia. 


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wiLl  ^crease  to  so  cents  on  the  fourth 

DAY    AND    TO     $1.00    ON    THE    SEVENTH     DAY 
OVERDUE. 


APR  12  1935 


FEB    21  1944 


V***- 


WJl 


tffrft&M$- 


^e-ttn«wrs 


ZI^ph** 


LD  21-100m-8,'34 


U.C.BERKELEY  LIBRA 


00^303714 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


